Heartfelt Answers
by Blissful-Web
Summary: What is a heart? If I rip open your chest, will I see it? If I crack open your skull, will I find it there?


A/n: I was just catching up on the bleach manga and read the little conversation Ulquiorra had with Orihime. It had me wondering if Ulquiorrahad asked others before our dear little Inoue-san the _Hearts_ question. There's also a tiny bit of GinRan in here, just because I can too. XD

Please read and enjoy! I'd appreciate it if you'd left a review and told me how it was too!

**Disclaimer**: Bleach belongs to Tite Kubo.

_**Heartfelt Answers  
**_

_"You humans are always talking about hearts. It's as if you have them in your hand. But my eye sees everything. Nothing can escape it. What it doesn't see doesn't exist. That's how I've always fought." --Ulquiorra_

The first time he opens his papery lids,  
gulped down his first air,  
spread his bare ashen arms and legs,  
blotches of black and dark blue cross his vision.  
Sparkling glass, mask fragments  
and a twirl of auburn hair  
hiding dangerous eyes.  
He is cold.

His new God asks his name,  
he lifts shuttering,  
black licorice lips  
and breathes two words that appear  
from nowhere.

"_Ulquoirra…Schiffer."_

His God smiles,  
places long fingers upon his mess of black hair  
the side without the crumbling mask.  
He pats it twice  
like he is some obedient dog.  
Perhaps he was,  
Ulquoirra didn't care.

In the fading shadows,  
his God is drenched with the scent of power and superiority.  
He smiles gently enough to be terrifying.

"_There is so much to be destroyed."_

The words come  
and go.  
And he feels nothing, _nothing_.

_Empty._

_---_

His skin is gray,  
like storm clouds.  
His eyes are an icy green.  
The mess of black hair has shortened  
to lie neatly above his eyes.

He has killed many.

Ulquoirra wipes the blood away from his hand  
with one swift 'swish.'  
Then he watches and waits.  
Watches Hollows stagger, crumble, _beg  
_like the trash that they are.  
He dealt no mercyas long as Aizen-sama wished it.

It does not matter anyway.  
The scent of blood  
does not bother him.

He has no desire to be pure  
when he knows he isn't.  
He has no desire to stop  
when he knows he won't.  
He has no desire to pity  
when he knows he can't.  
Ulquoirra is only a silent, pragmatic silhouette  
with a billowing white robe  
and flecks of blood along his fingernails.

After so much time,  
he is still cold.  
As long as Aizen-sama wished it.

---

Humans  
are strange creatures.

They are bright, colorful ones  
_Loud_.  
Ulquoirra watches as they pass him  
oblivious and incompetent to his roaming eyes,  
so he observes with sharp apathy  
all their smiles and laughs and linked pink hands._  
But what is scum is still scum._  
Incredibly dense scum that has clung onto  
his tiny flicker of curiosity  
and has fed it wildly.

He can't comprehend though,  
what it is that makes them.  
What makes them want to fight back so hard.  
Hueco Mundo was nothing  
but an endless struggle to survive.  
So when Hollows fight him,  
biting, scratching, howling,  
it is nothing newand he finishes them without a blink.

Then he kills his first humans.  
Not that he wants to or cares altogether.  
(So long as Aizen-sama wished it).  
It is different and in a vague way  
quite interesting.

Some fight back at him.  
Ulquiorra discovers for the first time  
how thin the border between humans and beasts truly was.  
They use their teeth, nails, fists, legs, anything.  
Anything that could cause harm.  
And when it ultimately fails,  
they try to use their words.

_Please let me go. _

_I have a family. _

_They're still waiting for me at home._

_Please_

Yet there are others that don't fight.  
The more queer of their kind  
that looks Ulquiorra in his icy green eyes,  
sees the barren wasteland underneath  
and realizes the futility.  
They fold their hands in their laps  
a calm films over them  
that is too akin to peace.  
Ulquoirra feels obligated to be understood.  
"_I am not a shinigami. I did not come to save you."  
_But all they do is smile  
which is puzzling to him.

_Promise me you won't hurt my friends or family._

_Promise me you won't go near them._

_Promise me that they'll be safe._

_Just promise me._

He agrees every time  
simply because there was no reason  
_not_ to agree.

"_Why?" _He'd ask at times, bored and blank.

And it's a rather discomforting moment when they look at him  
And smile and smile.

_Hearts._

Each time he looks  
and he searches.  
He scans their bodies,  
hands.  
And there's nothing  
just like the hole in his pale neck.

But his eyes do not see  
what should be there.

"_What my eye doesn't see doesn't exist."_

And then the pity is there,where his eyes could catch it.  
It sickens him in a detached way  
to be pitied by a gasping  
pathetically dying creature.

"_It exists."_

It is only natural.  
After so long,  
one got curious.

"_It really does_."

---

Aizen-sama sits upon his throne  
all day and all night  
Smiling, killing, and planning.  
Ulquiorra respects the practicality  
more than he even knows.  
He's sure that Aizen-sama did though,  
even when he didn't.

When he steps inside  
sandals hitting the marble.  
The cold air scented  
in lust and desire.  
Aizen-sama locks  
his godly  
blood-tipped hands  
and waits like he's been  
waiting since day one.

Ulquiorra lifts his ashen hands  
from his soft pockets  
and does a light bow.

"_The mission is complete, Aizen-sama."_

Aizen-sama smiles  
brown eyes cold and glinting  
like his blade.  
Ulquiorra waits dully  
and Aizen-sama lets him.

Up so high,  
far above his head  
Aizen-sama praises him  
with gentle words that sound  
so fake that they were almost real.  
He smiles  
even as he is thinking  
with half a mind,  
on when he would become too weak to use,  
when would it be time  
to crush him like a bug.

Ulquiorra's eyes can see it,  
in the rather amused curve  
of Aizen-sama's lips.  
If Ulquiorra had not been so loyal  
he would've tried to run.  
Because he's too practical to try to kill Aizen-sama,  
not that Ulquiorra ever really cared at all.

"_I'm assuming you obliterated them."_

Aizen-sama likes to ask questions,  
likes forcing others to answer questions  
he's always known the answer to.

Ulquiorra nods anyway,  
his mask heavy on one side of his face.  
Aizen-sama's eyes glitter  
in a delight that was nothing but disturbing.  
sitting on his white throne,  
pristine and impervious  
Aizen-sama was silently excited.  
Ulquiorra raises twin fingers  
to gouge out his eye  
and appease his God.

But his God raises one long hand,  
and that is all that needs to be done.  
Ulquiorra lowers his armback to his side.  
Aizen-sama is ready for him now.

"_Why did you send me to kill humans?"_

They were scum,  
dirt beneath the soles of his feet.  
There was nothing about them  
even worth mentioning,  
beyond a tiny wisp of reiatsu.  
It goes against Ulquiorra's ways,  
if one could call it that.

Aizen-sama rests his chin  
upon his godly hands,  
and smiles like he has just told  
a particularly humorous joke.

"_And why not?"_

In that smile is a cruelty,  
that makes his eyes throb,  
that befell thousands of enemies.  
A deeply rooted cruelty.

"_I've always found humans rather…educational."_

Of course Aizen-sama already knows,  
He knows more about Ulquiorra's thoughts  
than Ulquiorra himself.  
If Ulquiorra cared enough  
he would've hate Aizen-sama more than anyone.

Instead he glances blankly into Aizen-sama's  
blade-like eyes.  
They stay like that for a short eternity.

Until Aizen-sama's mouth  
cracks again,  
brown eyes murky with impatience.

Ulquiorra thinks alone for a moment,  
keeping his wits about him  
and digs his way back into his pockets.

"_What is a heart?"_

Something deadly sparks  
in Aizen-sama's eyes.  
Ulquiorra catches it  
even as the echo of his words  
are still landing upon their ears.  
There is the familiarity, the fearlessness  
and the irrevocable disgust.  
All flashing by in milliseconds  
in the tiny movements of Aizen-sama's fingers.  
They do not escape Ulquiorra.

Soul Society must've had them.

Aizen-sama is silent  
immaculate face smooth and indifferent.  
And Ulquiorra understands  
without any words needing to be said.

Because Aizen-sama didn't know,  
hadn't known even when he resided  
in Soul Society's white walls.  
Aizen-sama didn't _know_ what  
having a heart was like.

"_It's nothing I concern myself with."_

Because Aizen-sama was a god.  
Elemental and ruthless  
like he had been born for his place in the Heavens.

Ulquiorra nods like he's satisfied  
bows once and turns to leave.  
His coat tails flutter with his steps.

And behind him Aizen-sama's eyes  
narrow the slightest bit.

---

Sometimes,  
Ulquiorra wonders  
about Tousen.  
He speaks so much  
of peace, of kindness, of respect.  
He speaks so much of justice,  
of equality, of _fairness_.  
He wonders mildly,  
if Tousen even realizes where he  
is right now.

He steps into the room almost silently.  
Tousen is seated on his bed,  
eyes on his lap  
or the wall.  
Eyes on nothing really  
since he couldn't see.  
Either way,  
he still senses him coming over.

"_What brings you here?" _He asks calmly, turning his head.

Ulquiorra isn't sure why he bothers.

In those eyes there is no malice,  
no sick, twisted cunning,  
only a white and milky blankness.  
The blankness reminds him of snowfields  
like Hueco Mundo's white deserts.

It's _almost_ funny  
how Tousen could sit there  
and pretend to be so pure  
and continue to walk  
a wrecked and decaying path.

"_I want to ask a question."_

He stands like a solemn shadow  
just barely within the threshold of the door,  
his hands in his pockets.  
Ulquiorra doesn't deem to take them out  
unless absolutely necessary.  
Tousen's face is still a smooth slate.  
His brown skin only the slightest bit rumpled  
by a slight lift of his lips in split-second surprise.

"_You are not one that asks questions often." _He comments.

Ulquiorra would've shrugged  
if it hadn't been so pointless,  
since Tousen wouldn't have seen it.

"_I get curious after a while. It's only natural."_

It placates him,  
and the subtle suspicion in the airdissipates gradually.  
Tousen nods at him,  
like he knows exactly where he was.  
"Go ahead then."

Ulquiorra takes another moment,  
to walk in exactly four steps closer.  
Tousen doesn't stand or anything  
when he hears the soles of his sandals  
clanking across his floor.

"_What is a heart?"_

Tousen's face is suddenly  
rippling with life,  
as the words fall down  
like big raindrops.  
His mouth is agape  
and filled with shock.

Ulquiorra waits patiently  
for the man to recollect himself,  
which he does in a matter of milliseconds.  
Then he is simply staring,  
not at Ulquiorra,  
staring at something that only he could see.

Tousen must've been a step ahead of Aizen-sama  
who had not possessed a heart,  
was disgusted by it.

Ulquiorra wonders  
if he will get a true answer.

"_It gives you the courage to tear down what you know you can rebuild."_

And as the words land,  
Ulquiorra sees the righteousness on Tousen's face.

The justice wraps around his deep voice  
turning him blinder than he already was.  
Maybe that was why he never really noticed  
how corrupted he had become.  
Ulquiorra didn't care enough to wonder.

He would've bowed  
but Tousen wouldn't have seen.  
Ulquiorra turns without a word  
returns through the door,  
his coat flapping.

Tousen returns his gaze to the wall or the floor  
or wherever he'd been looking.

---

The woman is a sad, whimpering mess  
gasping like a fish.  
While red spills over the concrete road  
like rotten fruit.

Her hands are splayed  
twitching sporadically.  
Ulquiorra stands before her  
trying not to feel disgusted  
by the human blood crusting under his shoes.

Her face is a moon of white  
and fear and instinct and more fear.  
Ulquiorra wonders if she would know  
Since she is a human.

"_I have a question for you."_

Ulquiorra walks a little closer  
so his feet are next to her head.  
Her hair is tangled brown curls  
that are snared and choking from  
the blood coating them.

Her blue eyes travel up  
to his iced ones  
and remain there.  
Ulquiorra takes this  
as acceptance to continue  
even if it wasn't.

"_What is a heart?"_

And the way the girl looks at him  
with this world-weary feel  
makes Ulquiorra want to press his foot to her head  
until there is a sufficient 'crack.'

"_Hearts?" _She repeats, more or less chokes out.

Then there is a pause  
and Ulquiorra finds himself waiting  
again.

A strangled laugh interrupts the air,  
a strange shriek of irony that  
is so soft and weak  
yet echoes throughout the empty streets.

"Sorry," she says after controlling her blackish mirth.

Her eyes leave his and looks toward  
her scanty skirt and ripped bra straps  
before looking back at him.

"_I wouldn't know what that is."_

Ulquiorra nods once,  
hearing the truth ring  
in her wheezing words.  
He raises a hand  
and bends down slightly.

He will lower himself  
to her groveling level  
in return for her honesty  
and grant her a swift death.  
Just like how her eyes  
have been begging him to.

His hand slowly falls across her neck.  
Her skin is soft and fragile  
and very breakable.  
It saves him the trouble.

The woman gasps slightly at the cold  
dead feeling the hand had  
once in contact with her bare neck.  
And does an almost-real smile  
for the first time in her miserable life.

Ulquiorra starts putting pressure on his hand  
and catches the curving edges of her lipstick smeared lips.  
Her eyes are glassy and filming over  
but they stay on him,  
like he was some sort of savior.  
"Y-you know," she's still rasping out,  
blood crusted down her chin flaking slightly,  
"Everyone use to have one."

Ulquiorra looks at her blankly.  
"Have what?"

The girl's lips curve up a little more.  
"A heart."

Ulquiorra doesn't replyand starts squeezing a little harder.  
A small sound of discomfort  
slurs out from the depths of her purpling throat  
like a rusty gate creak.

"_Maybe it was just a dream."_

And Ulquiorra looks at her again  
her eyes are trained on him purposefully.

Then he swiftly breaks her neck.

He releases his hand  
now slightly red from blood.  
And leaves her there.

Her eyes fading away,  
free to dream as much as she pleased.

---

Ichimaru is always draped across his window  
looking into the deserts sands  
like there's something interesting about them  
that won't let him look away.

Ulquiorra stands just outside his open doorway  
seeing the white of the man's teeth  
glow in the darkness of his room.  
A small rumble of revulsion pulses through him.

He wonders briefly if he should just keep walking.  
It was practically incredulous to think  
that Ichimaru,  
with his deceitful grinning face,  
would be able to answer him with the truth.

Yet before he can ponder further,  
Ichimaru's head snaps around,  
silver hair flying around his slit eyes,  
and catches him  
like a fox with his prey.

"_Ara? It ain't common for you to come knockin' Ulquiorra."_

Ichimaru's voice is light and intoxicating  
like a drug or a feather floating in the sky.  
Ulquiorra finds himself walking in  
now that there was no point  
in trying to deny his visit.

A taste of metaland coldness and bones  
collides with him as he steps in.  
Ichimaru is smiling,  
and staring at himor the sand outside.

"_I came for an answer to a question."_

He stops after only two steps inside the room.  
He stares back at Ichimaru  
who's grinning dangerously  
Like he's just been given a rather amusing toy.

Ichimaru's bobs his silver head  
up and down twice.  
"Well now, that's what I'm here for. Go 'head, ask away."  
He waves a bony  
white hand at him,  
his fingernails like daggers.

Ulquiorra could already feel  
the answer would be one  
riddled with lies and taunts.  
He turns slightly  
to be ready to leave  
once Ichimaru has had his fun.

"_What is a heart?"_

Almost instantly,  
the air turns several shades darker.  
Ichimaru's grin creaks  
like a gate swinging closed.  
The man turns around in his seat  
his lithe form rustling his bellowing white robes.

Ulquiorra looks back at him  
with an eyeful of nonchalance.  
Ichimaru is smiling wildly  
the ends of his smile practically touching  
the lines of his eyes.  
"That's one helluva weird question, Ulqui-kun."  
Ichimaru tilts his head slightly  
like he'd be able to see him better if he did.  
Ulquiorra says nothing.

A pale, skeletal finger rose  
to tap Ichimaru's chin thoughtfully.  
And even this feigned bemusement  
was enough to surprise Ulquiorra.  
Unnoticeably he shifts his foot back  
so he is facing the crouched man again.

They stay like that for a minute or a millennium,  
the silence stretched thin and bare.  
Until Ichimaru's debonair voice filled the air.

"_It's the thing that everyone's scared shit less of deep inside."_

Ulquiorra stares at him,  
as the words slithers across the air  
wriggles in truth.  
And Gin stares back,  
the edges of his grin suddenly  
lower and softer and real.

Aizen-sama had flinched at the sight of it,  
Since there was no need for a heart to obtain power,  
He had no need for it either.  
Tousen had wanted it, desired it, but burned  
with a self-righteousness that tore it down  
unable to be rebuilt.  
But Ichimaru had nothing to gain,  
no goals, no ambitions, no bitter vendettas.  
He was just _because_.

For a while, Ulquiorra had simply attributed it to madness  
and left it like that because he couldn't have cared less.

Perhaps, it had been something far more.

The scent of sand, salt and contempt  
drifts in the air and Ulquiorra can just barely make out  
the wilting sadness underneath.

He's sure he's found his answer.

Ulquiorra turns to leave  
giving Ichimaru one rather sullen look.  
But before he can get far enough,  
the voice hits him again like a tidal wave.

"_I think that girl would know best."_

Ulquiorra turns slightly in confusion."What girl?"

"You know, that girl," Ichimaru's smile is smaller now, "The one with the orange hair."

And he does know.  
Since _he _was the one who had dragged her shivering form here,  
who had allowed her one day to say good-bye,  
who had watched her spend that one day  
flailing back and forth between all her precious little people.  
Who had watched her shaking in terror at Aizen-sama's graceful words.

Ulquiorra knows _her_.

"Why do you say that?" Ulquiorra asks, tone dead.

Ichimaru only smiles, "Haven't ya seen her?"

"_She's like a coddled piece of porcelain." _

He wonders if he's imagined it when he catches Ichimaru muttering, _'God if only she had blue eyes.'_  
Even though Ulquiorra _doesn't _imagine things.

Ulquiorra leaves without a reply.  
And he doesn't need to turn to see that Ichimaru  
has returned to the window  
staring obsessively out into the emptiness.

---

When he comes to her,  
she is sitting upon her white couch  
in her spacious room  
with her tiny fingers  
twisting the life out of themselves.  
She is afraid,  
and she wants to be saved.

The door slides open easy  
and he steps in  
graceful and slow,  
so her incomprehensible human mind  
can acknowledge him.

She does not disappoint  
as she lets out a small noise of surprise,  
before immediately standing  
her hands clasped tightly before her.

Ulquiorra watches her squirm a bit in discomfort  
as she wriggles under his unflinching green gaze.  
Her gray eyes flit around the room  
like prey looking for escape.

But Ulquiorra was not here to convince her of her predicament.

"_You will answer a question." _He commanded more than asked.

The girl predictably looks up at him,  
her form slightly shaking.  
It was understandable. He never came for visits.  
He was only here for delivering messages and food  
and news that he knew she wanted to know  
even though she said she didn't want him to tell her.  
Other than that,  
he ignores her completely.

The girl nods once shakily.  
"O-of course."

Ulquiorra waits until she has leveled her quivering  
to a more reasonable degree.  
Which she does at a painfully slow pace.

"_What is a heart?"_ He speaks the words again over the course of his short yet ancient life.  
Ulquiorra begins to feel repetitive.

The girl is staring at him,  
mouth slightly agape.  
Just like all the others before her.  
But in her eyesis a sudden sparkle of passion  
and her shock erodes away quickly.

"A heart?"

He almost nods as a response  
but stops himself.  
Ulquiorra never repeated his words to trash.

In the girl's eyes is a tired gleam  
that reflects a gentle affection  
gone unnoticed for too many years.

"_What is it indeed?"_

And Ulquiorra catches that world-weary sorrow  
that he's seen in that woman,  
ravaged and violated in that cold street  
long ago.

She places a white hand to her chest  
and closes her eyes.  
"I thought it was here."

Ulquiorra feels his neck burning,  
the hollowed flesh aching as the air tore through it.

The prisoner opens her eyes,  
gray irises wide and clear.  
She does an almost-smile.

"It's probably not."

He leaves soon afterward once again,  
with different voices giving all sorts of different answers ringing in his head.  
No clear answer in sight.

---

The winter comes  
and Ulquiorra is still here, still empty.  
While all his fellow Espada  
have fallen one by one  
like toppling wooden blocks.

His hair is still black.  
His mask is still heavy.  
And his eyes still see everything.

The girl is still here too,  
with her fragile body  
and welted fingers.

He half-wonders if they all looked hideous to her.  
How lurid were they in her eyes.  
Ulquiorra doesn't put too much thought into it.  
Aizen-sama didn't wish it.

Aizen-sama has set to paint the human's world in a thick coat of blood,  
while Tousen rebuilds and Ichimaru tears it down again with a grin.

He walks toward her slowly,  
his footsteps echoing in the great hall of the throne room  
with the throne vacant after so long.  
His coat tails flap in the wind as he walked.

_What is a heart?_

She doesn't try to run  
or move or even look around for an exit.  
Something has finally changed about her.

_What is a heart?_

He walks a total of seven steps closer,  
so he is still a reasonable distance apart.  
She isn't afraid anymore.  
Ulquiorra doesn't smell the fear on her any longer.

She looks back at him,  
with those unflinching gray eyes  
that has gained back a small portion of determination  
and a rather large amount of compassion.

She is someone new now.  
Someone who perhaps would have a different answer.

He observes her coldly, callously and apathetic.  
"I have a question for you."

She looks at him and nods.


End file.
